David Itzkoff

Hello, this is Craig Ferguson letting you know that I am bringing the Fancy Rascal Tour to the Majestic Southwest this weekend October seventh at the Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino and Chandler Arizona.

Which is in the Phoenix area.

October the eighth at the Fox Tucson Theater and Tucson, Arizona.

Which is in the Tucson area.

For tickets, go to my website, the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash sure. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Meet David Itzkoff, former culture reporter for The New York Times and now just culture writer for anybody, including the New York Times.

It's very clever about the culture.

I feel like if we'd have got a second season The Joiner Die, I've been worth watching.

But we were talking.

About how fourmats can lead you astray. Yes, and I did a show call Join or Die after I finished in the Late Night, which was which you were openly laughing at just seconds ago.

I'm laughing at everything you do sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes for.

The wrong reasons. How are you, pal, I'm good.

I'm really flattered that you invited me to your little chess competition.

My booth, yes, yeah, this is a booth what we do. But it's a podcast booth. Yes, I take it with me around the country, my little booth.

I set it up. Nine of you. Not always luminaries like the Culture. Are you the editor? Yeah, the New York Times.

You know, it's an interesting thing.

I am departed in the fall so that I could focus on a book project.

I still write for them. I still write for other publications.

You're not actually on the payroll anymore.

No, No, it was a big step and been almost a year now.

You're a Republican. No, that is that what it is. It's like I no longer write for The New York Times and.

I can let my freak flags.

Yeah, but that's interesting because I think of you as a New York Times guy.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I think it's it's something that will always be in my blood. The tattoo is not coming off, for whatever reason you have I have I do have a tattoo.

You know why. You're gonna remember when I explained this to you.

One of my tattoos is of sid Vicious, because you were kind enough to introduce me to Steve Jones on like the best day of my life.

You know, I have to say, I've known Johnsy for a long time, and if meeting Joones is the best day of your life, we really have to help you because.

He's like, do you know what? Do you know why?

The last time I saw Yeah, we were talking about the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, and he said to me, oh, yeah, so so Bohemian Raps.

Apparently Freddie Murky was really nice. Blog. I had no idea.

I must have went by me that it.

Oh man, if I could have heard him say that live, I think I would have just I would have just fallen on the floor.

It's very funny.

Have you do you still listen to Jones's Yes, yeah, he's great.

I love him.

I just it's wild to me that like that's almost more of his identity now than like being I mean, yes, he'll always have his role in punk rock, but Especials.

Is a pretty decent band, and to create the guitar sound that he did, he really did.

But he's like an elder statesman too, and he's got all this uh, you know, institutional knowledge and he dispenses it to the next generation. That's such a fun like that's clearly not what he imagined himself doing.

It's weird he got when I did started doing the Puppets on Late Night. It was from Jow and Esy because I was listening. I was driving to work one day at school. Tribes of exhibt like, fucking CBS, get.

In there, mister Ferguson and do your podcast.

Oh no, what's the podcast? Then? What was it? Yeah, to talk to those celebrities.

It was like a podcast with pictures.

It kind of was badly lit podcast, but the I was on the way driving it work one day and I was listening to Jones's Jukebox, which is Steve Jones's radio show in LA and he played Frank Ifield singing she taught me to Yodel, which is a song from the nineteen I guess nineteen fifties that she taught me to yodel, And I thought, my god, that is so messed up. Yeah, I'm going to put that on the show tonight. And I did. I put it on the show that night and I lett sync to it with

I knew this was going to happen.

I'm kind of keeping it under wraps and it'll be out in the world about a year from now, and at that time.

You don't want to talk about it.

Yeah, I'm just you know, for various reasons. I'm also a little superstitious, and you know, it's it's suffice to say it was a very cool opportunity and like, I just couldn't pass it up.

All right, Hold on a second, here's the clue that came in that you're a little superstitious. Yeah, is it superstitious or OCD? No, I don't think it's OCD.

But if you want to call it anxiety.

Anxiety, Yeah, why are you anxious? You?

I mean you wrote I mean the first book that I think was the first book you wrote, Cocaine's Son.

That was one of the first. Yeah, that was. But yes, you were the first one I read.

Yes, thank you, right, Yeah, you're kind to support me in that era.

Well, listen, if you were writing a book about being raised by a cocaine addicted father. I felt like, given the way that I had lived read about the same time, I felt it was only how are things going in that department?

Now?

Well, you know, I mean, my dad passed away in twenty nineteen, but I have a.

Very sad to hear that.

That's okay, I appreciate that. But he you know, my son is eight and a half. And it's interesting because you know, I mean, of course, like I have copies of the book, you know, not like prominently displayed in the household, but on like the family. You know, I have like a bookshelf in my own room with some of my books on it. And he, you know, for many years, you know, he my son would walk past the bookshelf and he would just know that those were

And I don't.

Good idea for kids, but good idea.

Here comes the franchise, the heartwarming story Raised by a Dog.

He became the culture reporter on the New York Times, so.

He doesn't know, you know what, and first of all, he doesn't know what it really says, and he doesn't know why. Yeah, I'm not saying that he should in any way follow the trajectory that I did. But I learned about my dad's addiction when I was ten, I want to say, like, that's when it was made explicit to me, and of course I had many other clues before that.

Well, yeah, but your your son's having a very different experience.

I sure hope. So yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, yes it.

One side effect or impact of having the upbringing that I did is that I want to be dedicated to him in every way possible, and it wounds me terribly if I ever feel like I miss any kind of you know, transitional moment in his life, or just even a day that he wants me to come to school to see something and oh I already had a commitment that day, and I can't make it like it's awful in the heart.

Yeah, I feel exactly the same.

My kids are getting older enough, so it's they're a bit more kind of like, yeah, all right, it's okay.

Yeah, I'm on a date. I really don't need you to be here. You don't need to be two roars back at the theater.

Yeah, that's right, but it is It's kind of is an odd thing because are you a helicoptery parent?

Do you think? No?

I mean, I will let him give me the assessment at some point, but I feel like I'm probably way like I'm probably more neurotic about it and more like tunnel focused on it than I need to be. I think about how, even in the right ways that I was raised growing up. You know, my parents gave me a lot of latitude, and like, you know, I was already writing public transportation in New York City probably by the age of ten.

Yes see, that's not great though.

I don't know that, you know. I mean, I can't say good or ill. But that was how kids of my generation. I mean, we were all latchkey kids. That part was terrible, right. I don't think that that really had any positive impact on us. But the amount of just you know, trust and independence that we were offered that I find like I can't even fathom it.

I can't think about myself.

I'm trying to think of how old he's going to be when he's allowed to cross the street by himself could be age fifteen at this rate.

I for my oldest boy.

I let him get on an airplane to cross the Atlantic to see his grandpa when he was fifteen, wow, and I took him all the way. It was in glass. We were in Scotland and I went to the airport and the lady said, you're not allowed to come behind the barrier while I asked him the security questions. I said, he's fifteen. She said, yes, but you can't. You can't come behind the barrier. So there was a barrier between me and him, like it's just like a piece of rope.

So I stood right next to him and there was a rope.

She was asking him questions and she kept looking me, saying, you have to maintain a distance. I'm I'm not letting you take my kid away. And it was igo ugly.

They saw you like signaling with semaphore flag because they said, none of that.

We're thinking because he's fifteen, I'm embarrassing him. You know, he's like dad. For God's sake.

Well did they think that you're going I give him hints on the questions or something?

I know?

So they're saying, you know, did anyone pack your bags for you and go, yeah, my mom, it's crazy anyway.

So here's the thing.

You're raising your boy now, but it's making you think about your own childhood deliver because that's what happened to me when I when my.

Boys were young. I was like, oh God. And it goes back and you think back.

Does it help you in your perspective about your father's problems back then? Do you do you find yourself more or less forgiving? Do you have you have you changed your perspective since the writing of the book.

Yeah, I mean I probably not for the better, I would have to say. You know, it's a tough thing to reckon with, but I think I'm probably less forgiving when I find myself doing just commonplace everyday dad type things. I get it literally get up in the morning and make pancakes for my son. Right, I try to think about would my dad have ever done this for me?

Maybe it has still been awake, but no, if.

He was in the apartment at all.

So yeah, I mean it's it's I know it's not healthy and it's not great. The pancakes are healthy and great, but.

But there is a kind of nostalgia because you're a culture guy, right, and your you report and comment and investigate artistic journeys that we make as a society.

Thank you, assessing men, I'm assessing you that very very lofty, but thank you.

Right.

Well, you know it's I give you a little more greens because you used to work for the.

New York Times.

I can I get that for like maybe one more year and the glow is gone. I get it.

But but the thing is, there's a lot of nostalgia now for that time, that kind of stranger things type, you know, nostalgia for that period when you were little, and I'm like.

It wasn't so great.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, I'm trying to remember the James Gray movie that came out last year, Armageddon Time, which was set in New York, like right at the turn of nineteen eighty and the kid, you know, growing up in one of the outer boroughs.

I think I'm pretty sure it was Brooklyn, and you know.

Has a fairly like placid family life, like no you know, no drug abuse, no conflict of like that degree. But also I thought was very good at illustrating like just the sort of the vibe of being an eighties kid in New York and the challenges that probably anybody would have faced growing up in the way that it would

Wow, I get that. But I see, this is my theory. But I have a theory belt low thing. This is my theory. But when people get nostalgic for that kind of thing, you're not really nostalgic for the time. You're just nostalgic for being young, when your body worked differently, when you know, when it was all in front of you. Yeah, and things were a little different because you know, when I look back on I don't get nostalgic for Glasgow in the nineteen seventies, say, I don't think anyone would

Back in the day.

It's you know, and it's so interesting because like, sure, if I could like wave a wand or hop in a time machine and see the Glasgow of your like youth.

Of course I would like.

I'm all I can imagine is like the grittiness and the coolness. And I'm sure it wasn't any of those things that I know.

There was grittiness, and there was the coolness was so it wasn't cool. I mean, but I lived in the Lower east Side of Manhattan nineteen eighty four, right now.

Maybe we crossed paths. Well let's see you boy aged were you then? Well I would have been eight, yeah, and.

I would have been twenty, so that would have been bad time. I feel like though I didn't see anyone eight years old and the lower you know, I lived just next to Tompkins Square Park, and I don't think there were any children. There shouldn't have been any children within about a mile.

Of that park.

Then you see that park now and it's very you know, it's mom and pop and young families.

And young rich families.

Yes, and I think this is a weird thing because it wasn't so hot then. But I kind of feel it's missing something a little bit because of all that danger is going away, and it's not really, it's not missing anything, but I feel like it's just because I'm older.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because my wife and I before we got married, we were living in that neighborhood, but like early two thousands, we were living on like eleventh in A and fourteenth in A. And you're right, I mean that all of that the park was, you know, as as tranquil and safe as could be.

But like we remember when like.

The first seven eleven moved into the neighborhood or like on our corner, when like they started building like a Target department store, and that, like to us, that was like the end of.

The end of the neighborhood. Yes, that's funny.

Now when they got rid of like the drugs and the crime, but like when the you know, the the brand names.

I remember the corner of eleventh in A.

I bought cocaine off a guy who in the corner there once. It's the only time I ever actually bought cocaine on the street, because most of the time you'd buy it from someone like, hey, does this guy stuff like that? And I bought cocaine on the corner. It's the only time I bought a drug and it absolutely didn't work right. It was Saul or something. I was like, oh my god, this is outrageous, and I was so I was so annoyed, and and I went back to complain to him, but he wasn't there, which.

I'm very very happy about now that he wasn't there.

So you asked for his manager.

I was like, I want to see your supervisor because it's awful.

This cocaine is so far.

Well on behalf of the industry. Let me please take this up opportunity to apologize.

Well, that's fine, you're not in the cocaine distribution industry. Yeah, no, no, Hello everybody, this is Craig Ferguson letting you know that my Fancy Rascal Tour continues throughout the fall of twenty twenty three. For a full list of dates and tickets, please go to my website, the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash Tour. So listen the culture and I'm sure you asked this a lot, but culture is changing, is evolving very rapidly.

It certainly is.

And do you find yourself.

Being wary when even reporting on things, because you know, it's I speak with some experience, it is quite easy to trip over your feet and get into trouble right now.

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I think in a very sort of weird way, I feel like almost a kind of relief that I'm not reporting, let's say, on this sort of the day to day of you know, like the sag Aftra and writers strike or even really you know, I mean, just this is this is by no means the sort of most important aspect of it. But it has had a trickle down effect even on the coverage of culture that somebody who was in my position a year ago, I wouldn't. You can't get access to the

Talk to see there's your problem.

Yeah, you start to get if you.

Include all voices in any piece at all.

Now that I feel.

Is a shift in cultural reporting, because it is dangerous to include a contrary or opposing position. Particularly Oh look, I don't want to single out the New York Times. No, it's no worse or better than anyone else, but it seems to take an editorial position that would imply no, I don't know if this is said. I know nothing about the inner workings of the time, so I don't know if anybody ever says.

We don't want to give those guys a platform.

Screw those guys, right, But it is a newspaper and you are kind of meant to, aren't you as a journalist.

Well that's the push and pull of it all the time, I think, And that, yes, I mean, if you just you know, is the goal to just present voices and let an audience kind of choose what it wants to believe? Or you know, does a reporter or a writer bring some amount of expertise and knowledgeability about a subject?

And that yeah, I mean you.

Can you know, do you have to quote from somebody regardless of the or if you know that they're just blowing smoke or that they're just you know, they're just giving you a can statement with nothing supporting it.

Well, that's a thing that with culture you're going to run into a law because especially if you're covering some movie or you know, or a piece of music, you're dealing with publicists, yes, right, and you're dealing with people who their job is to protect the asset. That's that's

Well, I think people are hyper aware of you know, if you are an individual, if you're a personality, and you know what this is like, I mean, how much is sort of on your shoulders at any given moment, and just the reality of being a public figure and what it means to be in an interview situation, even if it's not you know, you don't enter into it confrontationally.

But I think I think it doesn't have to be all you have to do is is just leave a sentence lying around that can be turned into a clickbait and it becomes dangerous for you. And that's why I think publicists are very nervous about interviews. Now.

If you say, like a big movie.

Star is going for like remember that terrible trouble Liam Neeson get into a few because he said something really off color, and.

I remember them sort of.

I mean he came back onto that, onto the TV show Atlanta and kind of made fun of himself for it, and that seemed to help clear the air. But that took that was the process of like two or three years before.

I mean, and he he got a lot of trouble, Yeah, for speaking in an unguarded way.

I mean, look what you said wasn't good, No, but I.

Mean he was trying to speak.

I'm not even defending the content, but yeah, he was trying to sort of say something that seemed honest to him in the moment.

And and yes, of course, yes he was you know, knocked down for that.

Yeah.

God, it was like like seagulls on a fish sucker. Like, So if you were doing it now, yeah, and say you were in viewing, like would.

You want me to tell you a true story.

Sure, yeah, I mean, I just hope it's not too sensitive because it involves, you know, your successor at CBS. I mean, one of the last piece is that I wrote for The Times as a full time reporter. It was about James Cordon in the midst of you know, everything that had happened to this back and forth that he was having with the owner of Balthazar, and he and I already had an interview that was scheduled about

Yeah yeah, I mean, way I'm telling about Dave. I'm not telling to you man.

Look, that is a legitimate, you know way that he could have approached it, or they could have just looked it's it's too hectic a time, or any make up some excuses. Covid covid exactly exactly now, I thought. To his credit, he came to the interview and we're having like a late breakfast at the hotel that he's staying at how.

Was he with the way or was he.

Of course this is you know, the table right next to us, Like we're two minutes into our conversation and we hear the people next to us, one of the diners chastising their waiter, and he, you know, he makes a little face about it, you know, gives me a little you know, and he makes a comment, funny comment on it. But as our conversation progresses, and I make a couple of sort of attempts to just engage him on the subject and what has happened, and first he sort of acts like he doesn't.

Know what's going on or what could you be talking about?

I mean, I still stupid me, like I still think he's being sarcastic or playful, like it's just it's a bit. But as we got further and further, it was clear he was very to my mind, very angry, still definitely mad at me for even asking about it, right, and as if it wouldn't you know, there was there was no listen, there was certainly no sort of pre arranged agreement of what we would or would not talk about. And these publicists had said to me that morning, the

Well, well, I did it play out, did you? I mean, did he get really mad at you? Yeah?

I mean it was very you know, not not you know, just I've had very good, comfortable experiences with him in the past.

I know when things are tense, and it was very tense.

And I still said to him at the end, you know, I know this wasn't necessarily pleasant for you, but I thank you for you know, coming, and you know again, it's just like another another sort of fuselid was unleashed

Yeah.

It's an interesting thing though, because you get someone who's like I know what it's like to end one of those shows. Look, I don't know what happened that day in the restaurant, and I don't know what happened in the in the conversation with you and James, but I do know, so.

I just dropped my water.

Of course, how convenient.

That's all right.

It's only gone into that electrical thing. So it's fine, ignore those spars.

It's fine with.

The first podcast by Candle Light.

Yeah, it's that fire is nothing to it's not it's just a it's decorative.

So but I know what it's like.

For when I finished in late Night and I wanted to go, I was, I think, looking back on it now, making very bad decisions over and over and over again. We started our conversation, they talking about a show called Join or Die, which I did.

I should not have made that show, but I was like, I don't know what to.

Do, and I felt like I should make that show and it was it wasn't a good show, and I shouldn't have done it.

You want it, but you felt like you just want you wanted to have something to go on.

And also I had a whole team of people.

Because I had a team then yeah, and nobody tells you you're going to end.

Up with a team. You end up with a team, and you're like, I don't want a team, but.

You've got a team, and they say, no, you gotta do this now, Craig, this is the thing you gotta do. So my guess is that James Corden said, I don't really want to talk to the New York Times, and his team said, you can't cancel on the New York Times. And then he said, well, tell him I don't want to talk about that, and they probably said to him, we told him.

That could very well be. I think that that is, you.

Know, I mean, because I've had experiences sort of the inverse of it where a publicists will say, you know, don't ask about blah blah blah. If you bring it up, you know they're going to hang up on you. They're going to walk away whatever it is. And then you go and you have the conversation and you talk about it and it's totally fine.

Yeah.

Another true story. I mean, this is going back some but the very first time that I interviewed Paul Rubins, God bless him, and this was in like two thousand and four and you know, it was.

For like the obvious. Did they say, you don't bring it up?

Of course? Like of course?

And and I was, you know, I was very young and a little cowed, and I was like, well, I got to get this interview, however it is, and I just kind of bit the bullet. And you know, I'm sure everybody who's ever met him you probably met.

Him, which I'm very annoyed about.

I'm sorry. I mean, he's the just the gentlest, like kindest guy.

Ohso I ripped off his show quite a love for my own show, you know, late Night.

I assume he forgave you.

Yeah, I hope. So, I don't know. I never had the chance to apologize to him.

I don't know that he bore with a couple of exceptions,

Part of the story because he was the first canceled celebrity.

I can think in a way.

I mean, I think, look, I mean, if you want to go back to cow get out of my head.

Well, is an interesting thing because that's a I mean, he was proved innocent.

That's I mean, it's I can't even fathom, you know, in an era when all you have is like print, media and and radio, and you know how how information got circulated, how you in a case where you're innocent, how you clear your name?

But you know, it's mind boggling.

I think even No.

I mean, people like to say there's no smoke without fire, which anyone who's worked in show business for two minutes can tell you it's mostly smoke and no fucking fire. Ever, so no smoke without virus bullshit. But the idea that he was, you know, that morality that nineteen twenties, you know, expecting morality from movie star.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's quite current right now.

But people want there, I mean, they were, like, people are getting mad at Picasso for being horrible misogynist. It's not a fucking secret that Picasso was a horrible missile.

Look at the fucking paintings, Jesus. I mean, it's not it's not.

This is not new, But suddenly it's The outrage seems sometimes a little disingenuous to me.

It's a little.

It's hard for me, you know.

I mean, there are times where I can say, yeah, I mean, I'm not talking about Picasso, but there are you know, there are people who just seem to be just sort of perpetually feeding the outrage machine.

And I understand why kind of.

I mean, like, I don't know how many months will have a laps by the time this conversation is shared with the public.

But like Woody Allen coming to the defense.

Of this how much how much would you hate it if you were if you were under fire for being a and Woody Allen says, it's terrible.

Live about this guy's side. Guy, shut up a stop fucking backing me off.

Now We've got some good news for you. An Oscar winning director has come to your defense.

Oh geez, but it's it is a kind of odd thing. I think that obviously it is to do with getting clicks and getting people to click on, you know stories. One of the kind of pivotal moments from me during the current situation was I was on one of the sites.

It was BuzzFeed or I don't know, ectoplasm.

Whatever it was, whatever the site was, and I don't know if at plus necessiety, Yeah, and I saw the headline was ten things that really irritate.

Why would I Why would.

I fucking click on it?

There's nothing made, there's no obligation.

It's it's literally telling you, Craig Ferguson, do not click on this button?

Press, and then of course you press yes.

Do you find yourself now though, because you can see how the sausage is made, and you've known how it's made for a long time, do you look at it with a different eye when you hear a story about well, let's look at James Cordon's thing. When when you heard that story about how we like that's not a thing, or I wonder or I've heard stories or what?

Yeah, I did wonder? Of course you wonder, right?

I mean, is it is it because at the time, I mean, certainly this other fellow, Keith McNally, you know.

Who is the restaurant.

Yes, now, I'm sure the information he was getting from his staff was was real and sincere on their part, but you know, he also has this identity as a kind of online provocateur and saying things you know, on his account to kind of you know, rile people up or get under their skin a little bit. So yeah, of course, you're just you know, you have to have I think, just a borderline baseline curiosity of like, okay, what's really going on here?

But what happens to curiosity in a post truth? Yeah? Environment? I mean, that's that's what we're looking at.

Sure, And in fairness, I mean, it's not as if I got Courton to actually answer, you know, any of my questions, that he really addressed it. And whatever conclusion people came to in that moment, you know, had more to do with his attitude towards me. And I'm not

Well, that's I mean, that's what I think when I watched the interview with Prince Andrew. Did you ever see that, like Prince Andrew, what what a segue?

What transition?

Kind of the same thing in the sense where you go didn't anyone say to him, you know, you might want to shut up here.

You're in the wrong.

You clearly did something wrong. Shut the fuck up and make a deal if that's what's on the table. But to go on and think that you can hoodwink people, even if you could hoodwink people, it's probably best to shut.

Up, isn't.

But isn't this This is there's just something fundamental I guess about about human nature that because these scenarios keep repeating in some way, and we all look at them and we say, you know, if I were in that position, I bet I wouldn't dot dot dot. I'd be the one who finally doesn't or does and and the fact that it never happens, it's, you know, we can't we can't prevent ourselves. We all get in these emotional places and they we react to provocation or what we perceive is provocation.

What about the idea as well, that no one seems to be the villain of their own story right now. The truth is, if I look back out, because I I got sober, I got involved with a bunch of people who made me do inventories of myself and my behavior and the.

Times and continue to do it.

And what I noticed and what drives me crazy about these people I'm involved with, for they don't even let me say their name. That's okay, but they do. But it's the tradition, is sure there? I don't is that my part in it is the only part that I can do in about right? And do you find that like you interact probably less so now, I think with pop culture than you did maybe when you were still on the times, right, you're probably doing it last night.

Sure.

I mean I'm primarily a consumer of it and just a just a kind of rank and file audience member. I mean, I still write freelance pieces. But you know, I don't I don't know that I am at the sort of you know, nose to the right at the screen kind of person.

Right, But when you talk to You've talked to a lot of people who are accomplished in the arts. Absolutely, have you ever met someone who you've thought, this is actually someone who's accountable. This is someone who's like, yeah, I totally they totally owned who they are and they're accountable.

Hmmmm, I really I maybe it'll probably occurred to me at the moment I step out of the studio, I will say, I take a lot of pleasure in you know, I've had these experiences before. I mean people who have just lived a lot of years and are truthful about you know, a book that I wrote about the screenwriter

And what I see, I don't have a problem with an artist having problems. And what I don't understand is this relentless drive by the borg for fucking respectability. Why does Mulkdiglian he have to be respectable?

Why does fuck it?

Oh, Vincent, you cut your ear off? Oh you're thorough? Why the fuck should Lamy be a good guy at your you know, kid's soccer practice.

It's not.

Though vot the kids did well, vote, kids did well with a soa living new in a youngsters. But I think that I think that there is this weird This is why I don't understand the idea that everybody be held up to the same.

Moral value as a middle of the road Sunday school teacher.

It's I don't I didn't come of age in that I didn't feel like that was necessary.

I mean, we're I don't think as as a as a people were ever going to sort that out. I mean, you know, I got a guy tattooed on my arm who murdered his own girlfriend. I mean that's not mince words. I'm not celebrating him for that fact. I look, maybe maybe somebody will notice that one day and say, how dare you?

How can you have that?

Yeah? I mean, my wife's known about it since, you know, we've since we've been together. She's never taken umbrage at it, and she understands why the symbolism and the spirit of sid Vicious means. I mean, I'll never ever live that life or come close to it.

But I don't think you need to, and I don't think I don't think anyone needs. I don't said shouldn't have done it either, you know.

But these are the.

People that, like we just we can't help but at least find ourselves fascinated with. And they're the ones at the avant garde or the bleeding edge. They're the ones that are pushing. Not all of them have to murder their girlfriends to do it, but but you know, we find that the people who are, you know, in some way or another, advancing our culture or making the things that are lasting, or contributing to them, you know, or being.

Swept along by it, you know.

I mean, the whole saying of I mean said is actually a pretty good example.

Said was what twenty one twenty two.

Yeah, you know, I mean a kid, Yeah, and being swept up in this this huge look. I was in my early forties before I became even a little bit famous, and it's a very odd thing to have happened to you.

I can't imagine how anyone survives in their early twenties. That is insane.

Well, and certainly you know when you look at the numbers of those who don't and you know, find it so you know, damaging and overwhelming it, and you know, and every iteration of it. I mean obviously, now with all the different ways that you can be you know, examined and being perpetually under the microscope, it seems horrifying. But people in eras when all there was was just you know, TV and radio and like a handful of newspapers, even that was too much to bear.

Is it necessary for you if you like someone's work, that you find their personality acceptable.

It's very tricky now, right, I mean it's one thing to look back at people even from the seventies and you can, you know, you can just like just about enough time has elapsed right where you can say like, okay, yeah, I recognize that they were horrible in this way that way, but they're you know, year's gone by, maybe they're dead, and so like I can just look at the artifact

Also within the confines.

Yeah, I find that that might be detrimental towards art, just in the sense that you know, well, look, let's take a different form of art. Let's talk about a chef. You ever meet a chef, It wasn't a dick, you know. I mean, like every chef I've ever met is a fucking dick.

I'm gonna be eating a lot of fast food on the rest of the shift, I think, Craig, But.

I think it's kind of it's what they kind of have to be.

You know, there is a very high prey a situation. It's fairy decisions all the time. You're the one that you're on the line for it, nobody else, And it's like it seems to either it produces a personality like that or it attracts a personality like that, something like that. But for you, right is you know, obviously it doesn't matter if you go to a restaurant and the food taste good. You don't really think about if the chef's

Yeah they I mean, forget it, right if you really start pulling that apart, right, Yeah, it's like, so.

It seems to me a convenient moral stance is what it's really taking.

It's not a real moral stance.

I mean, if you if you really wanted to get moral stands, you wouldn't put any gasoline in your car and you wouldn't have an iPhone.

You just would.

Yeah.

So I think it's up to look, you know, this is the greatest cop out of all time, but it's up to the individual. And if somebody transgresses, whether it's a chef or an artist or whomever, it is to a degree that you know, you find, you know, offensive or untenable.

Like I think you have a right.

To yes, you do, you personally with you know, have a right to addraw. I mean, you know, if you're talking about criminal offense, then.

Committed crime, you go to jail. Right, That's the way it is.

But when you're just talking about you know, a personality thing and an ego thing, and you're you know, like you can you can in your mind cancel that person. You know, the question like the need to cultivate you know, a kind of a mob or just a you know, an outcry around an incident that you know, is that that dynamic seems pretty entrenched now too.

It's also a little tired, I think, because you get the idea that you know, people are saying that they're annoyed, and you go, what people are saying that, you know, like forty people on Twitter, I don't care. You know, it's not even Twitter anymore, is it twigs?

Forty people on Twigs?

Right?

I think that's like.

The best thing that you know, of all the ways that the site has been kind of ruined and made like unusable, at least like it's it doesn't have that kind of like the power to just like generate those that that kind of like those instant mobs.

No delay. It's really interesting it.

I wonder if if Musk really is a genius and he won I'm gonna declaude, this motherfucker. I'm gonna it's gonna be it's gonna be A kitten is going to be totally fucking useless.

I mean I think, yes, I don't know the kittens.

Are now you're canceled.

I look, I mean, I'm sure that he went in with some kind of intent of, like, you know, making it less powerful and less responsive to like the group dynamics that that you know that made it so popular.

There's no question about it.

But like whether I don't know whether whether he intended it to have the effect that it was going to

We've come through a circle. He's a goddamn idiot. So here's the thing I wanted to ask you. I bet you get asked a lot if someone of your friends says, you know you were interviewing I don't know Michael, okay, and they would say what was he like? And you have to say he was nice because if you know, if with Michael Kain, it's easy because he is nice. Right, But you know you're going to shout someone's dreams if you tell them that he was dreadful and he smelled like he but.

She doesn't and he isn't.

I'm sure he's fragrant as a rose.

But here's what I think you've done.

It's very, very clever that we've talked for this entire podcast about other people, because I think that's what you do. I think you deflect as much as possible away from yourself myself.

Yeah, why do you think you do that?

I don't know.

You know, it's interesting because I don't imagine that I'm actively doing it.

I don't think you've mean them too.

So I just think, and I even thought that, I'm not accusing you or or criticizing or anything. I thought we kind of did talk about some personal things. But yeah, I mean you you sat and looked at me and listened to me for the last forty five minutes.

I gotta I gotta give you some credence.

You know.

I think what it is is that you I don't think you're guarded. I really don't. I don't get from you that you're trying to hide. Thanks, But I do get that you have a genuine curiosity, which I think is fascinating given given the fact that you've been doing it for you haven't been doing it for fifty years for a while.

Yeah, I didn't start, you know, yesterday. Is sad to say, but yeah, I don't. I don't think I'm not like other than a couple of things, I'm not like guarded about myself and I'm not really protecting anything.

Except do you want to tell me who you're working on? A boogwet? That's right, but that's okay, that's a professional decision.

Yes, thank you, that's all right.

It's not like, you know, how do you like your you know, sex or anything?

How do you like your sex?

What your sex?

How do you like your sex?

I have never heard this word.

Wait, I.

Got to look this up.

How do you like your sex?

Do you like it? Do you like the ladies sex? Or do you like the other one?

If I go online and type in the word sex. Well, I find information on this.

You'll get a lot. I tell you what not to do. Don't do this.

When when we were in Los Angeles, my wife she felt her skin was getting very dry, she said, I think I really need to get some treatment for this.

Go to a spy, I get some connections. My skin's very dry.

Okay, So she googled Ellie's best facial, which is.

A very it's a very very bad idea.

Oh my god.

So never never do that, although apparently it is good for you. So David, it's been lovely to talk to you.

So much for inviting me to come by and do this and to get to catch up with you like this. I'm so thrilled you are.

You know, you are a man who understands a loose format and and I like that.

And I do get that you get a sense of joy at what you do. That I really do.

Thank you so so much.

I do.

And you know, there's nobody who I'd rather share a loose format.

With than you, Craig.

Thank you, my friend, Thank you. Good luck